I bet when they were old women, they wore purple: Miriam

W OODBROO K B A P T I S T C H U R C H 25 Stevenson Lane Baltimore, MD 21212 410.377.2350 Every member a minister. I bet when they were old women, they wore purple: Miriam Exodus 2:1-10; 15:20-21; Numbers 12; Micah 6:4 an excerpt of the preaching experience at Woodbrook Baptist Church Sunday, September 9, 2012 a contribution to the conversation by the Rev. Dr. John Ballenger The first of our stories of Miriam is the best known probably the one we all think of when we think of Miriam even though sheʼs not mentioned by name. Described as a young woman often pictured as a young girl (we donʼt know how old she was), watching over her baby brother floating down the Nile, which was supposed to be his death according to the decree of Pharaoh, but she watched over him, keeping him safe until he was found. And then, quickthinking, she reunited the baby with his mother her mother their mother arranging for the mother to be the wet nurse reuniting those separated. In this first story, Miriamʼs all about maintaining relationships sustaining family. Itʼs interesting. Thereʼs an echo of creation in this story. For the mother looked at the baby, we read, this new creation, and saw that he was good (same words as in Genesis Walter Brueggemann, Exodus: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections www.woodbrook.org

in The New Interpreterʼs Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume I [Nashville: Abingdon, 1994] 699) not fine as in our translation! But the family was willing to risk this son to suffer separation in the hope of love in the hope of saving the innocent of preserving the possible of nurturing the hope of a better future story. Then on the shore of the Sea of Reeds, we encounter Miriam again, and sheʼs explicitly identified as a prophet. Now thatʼs huge! Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel reminds us in his wonderful two volume work on the prophets that the prophets of Godʼs primary function is to bear testimony to Godʼs concern for human beings. The fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God (Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, Volume I [New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962] 26), he writes, and Miriam, Aaron and Abraham are the only three people designated as prophets in the entire first five books of Scripture (Bruce C. Birch, Numbers: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections in The New Interpreterʼs Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume II [Nashville: Abingdon, 1998] 109)! Miriam, the prophet, led the women, we read, in recounting the mighty deeds of God on their behalf retelling the story in song and dance praising God in an emotional, liturgical God-naming, faith-affirming, toe-tapping story telling that scholars believe to be one of the oldest of all parts of Scripture. And yes, itʼs deliverance. Yes, itʼs God on the side of the disenfranchised. Yes, itʼs divine power on the side of the powerless taking on the instruments of oppression and might domination. Yes, itʼs scripture acknowledging conflict in the struggle for power and authority, but but itʼs also disturbing, weʼve noted before disturbing as a celebration of the partiality of God disturbing in the violence of God.

Now water, in the story, as in creation, represents chaos, and is symbolically more palatable. The chaos that was to consume the baby Hebrew boys thrown into the Nile consumes instead those who condone and traffic in death and violence. And yet still, while itʼs one thing to say those who choose death die by their vision and choice, itʼs another to image God killing them. So while we note the significance of Miriamʼs role as leader, weʼve indubitably moved from the innocence and purity of the first story, havenʼt we? Which is a pattern weʼve noted before in Exodus beginning with the absolutely successful non-violent resistance of Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives, to the death dealing of Pharaoh. Thatʼs how Exodus begins, but then quickly turns into something something else. Interesting, isnʼt it? Stories of women (Shiphrah, Puah, Mosesʼ mother, sister, Pharaohʼs daughter) start Exodus off in peaceful resistance to oppression and transformative possibility life affirming, life celebrating, life enabling before the stories of men take it into violence and death. You hear that, girls? You hear that, boys? And itʼs not just the arc of Exodus, but also the arc of individuals within Exodus. And Moses before before he killed an Egyptian, lived among them before he took on Pharaoh, was raised in Pharaohʼs house and before he condemned to death the Midianite women (Numbers 31), married one. Then that arc extends beyond the book of Exodus as we then come to that strange story of Miriam in Numbers. Certainly not as well known. In this story both Miriam and Aaron are named prophets, both acknowledged as leaders of the people, and both here question the marriage of Moses to a Cushite woman. Some wonder if this was a racial issue? Cush perhaps being Ethiopia; this woman perhaps being black. Some broaden it to note the intermarriage laws in general. Deuteronomy 7:3 is pretty clear:

Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. And Miriam and Aaron question the leadership of Moses, so the one in charge can break the rules everyone else has to keep? And she who had been all about maintaining relationships and sustaining family here seems to rip it apart. But apparently for justice, right? For whatʼs right. Equity. Now within all that tension, itʼs an apparently quite straightforward story: donʼt mess with Godʼs chosen! Bad things happen when you do. See God. See Godʼs chosen. Respect Godʼs chosen. Good. Disrespect Godʼs chosen. Bad. Instruction. Motivation. Reward and punishment. And Moses is most strongly affirmed not only as Godʼs chosen, but as the most humble of all (now not the most meek! humble in Scripture is not an interpersonal character trait [how other people would describe Moses], but rather characteristic of Mosesʼ relationship with God). And Aaron and Miriam are put in their place. Now is this as straightforward as needing to maintain a hierarchy of authority (Birch, 108) because the boss can do whatever the boss wants? It sure seems that way. But letʼs just suppose, for fun, that thereʼs something to sequence to the order of events in the unfolding of Miriamʼs story as recounted in Scripture. Because thatʼs essentially a possible paraphrase of the song she sang, right? Donʼt mess with Godʼs chosen! And if we see and sing of God on the side of the winner interceding with might and power..., if we divide into us and them,

well, then, it doesnʼt stop. And what was the division into the children of Israel and Egypt, becomes the division into Miriam and Moses. Because if God works that way, then I want God on my side! Because I want to be a winner. I want to be the one in control. I want to be the one making decisions. I want that validation. I want to be the one who gets to do whatever I want! Itʼs not such an odd story after all if you consider it in the order it all comes We have to be so very careful. For the God we proclaim (more than the God who is) shapes our behavior and attitude. Let me say that again. Because Iʼm still thinking about it. The God we proclaim (more than the God who is) shapes our behavior and attitude. What if, though, letʼs just suppose, what if, we got it all wrong? The tone. The intent. What if Miriamʼs leprosy is not meted out as punishment, but offered as an opportunity as gift. Some gift, John! She had leprosy! Thanks a lot! If itʼs all the same to you, keep your gifts! For seven days, we read, Miriam had to cry out Unclean! Unclean! For seven days she had to live alone outside the camp (Leviticus 13:45-46) had to live as an outsider removed from those she led living as one of the least of these. What did she learn? What did she learn? What if she learned not not to mess with Moses not that the boss is always right and can do whatever, but the radical affirmation that to know your right place before God

is more important than any of the institutional laws of religion? What if she learned what sometimes appears unfair can be right that there can be a greater truth beyond the law? What if she learned not just something about our right place before God in humbleness, but something about Godʼs right place among us in humbleness? That more than whoʼs in charge, God cares about those on the fringes. God risks those called of God us God risks those called by God to suffer separation in the hope of love in the hope of saving the innocent of preserving the possible of nurturing the hope of a better future story. And the people, we read, would not leave until she was restored to them. She was their leader even as a leper. In the prophetic book of Micah, the prophet envisions God in controversy with Godʼs people, the children of Israel, now long settled in that land of promise. And God asks, In what have I wearied you? Before going on to affirm, For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam (Micah 6:3-4). There they are all three siblings remembered as leaders in the great Exodus. Now, remember, the last story of Miriam was that one in Numbers. If that was a story of failure, itʼs an interesting lead in to the affirmation of Micah! But if it was a story about learning learning more about God and learning more how to be as God, then it makes more sense. The Micah reference to Miriam leads up to the famous: What does God expect of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly (there it is again!) with your God.

Itʼs what Miriam learned, isnʼt it? Quick Hebrew lesson (I know youʼre thrilled!). Two words in that Micah passage sound so much alike: have I wearied you, hele-tichah, and I brought you up, he-eli-tichah. Thereʼs just not that much of a difference between Godʼs bringing us out bringing us out of the house of slavery bringing us out of oppression God bringing us up into possibility and hope and freedom thereʼs not that much of a difference between God bringing us out, and a burden! Ainʼt that good news?! But itʼs deeply, profoundly true. Thereʼs something about the call of God that has to do with sharing the load others bear. Moses knew that. Miriam learned that. And itʼs a burden worth shouldering a vision bigger than a goal beyond the self. and itʼs a burden shared a yoke made easy because itʼs God with us and because thatʼs how God is with us. We are not brought out to celebrate ease comfort to celebrate our own success, but to challenge even our own laws our own customs and traditions in finding the lepers and the outcast the excluded, the powerless, the voiceless, the poor, the widows and the orphans to tell them to proclaim to them and to our world that if God bringing us out is, in truth, good news for us, it is also good news for them or itʼs but a warped telling of the story. In the wilderness of Zin in Kadesh, we read, Miriam died and was buried. Josephʼs bones were carried out of Egypt (Genesis 50:25-26; Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32)

and buried in the land of promise. But Miriam was buried on the way. Appropriate, donʼt you think? For that was Miriam on the way ever becoming. So girls and boys of all ages, you are becoming. We each one of us have more to learn about the gift that is a burden until itʼs a gift for all. The gift though, that if received as itʼs given, is burden embraced burden shared until gift for all. Now it wonʼt always be easy. But neither can it be better. Girls and boys, there is no richer, better, more profound way of life. You are called by God, and you can be a part of the world recreated graciously extending hospitality making a home for all. You can choose to risk hoping in love to preserve the God-possible and to live into a land of promise that still lies ahead. Weʼll see you on the way!